Fitzroy Street takes shape

And just like that, it has warmed up in these here parts of Australia.  

It is now balmy in the shed, and that is not just my considered opinion.  It is the opinion of a family of swallows who have decided to nest in one of the rafters.  These charming little rats with wings used the same spot last year, so it has been a bit of a running battle to evict them.  I seem to have found their current access point, which is no larger than a HO loading gauge tool (I checked).  It is now plugged and I think I am alone now up there.

A number of projects have advanced since the last post which covered the construction of Dubbo B Signal Box.  I was pretty happy with how that effort turned out, until I discovered a photo of its eastern wall a few days after declaring the project complete.  Here's a photo of what I should have modelled on, bearing in mind this is supposed to be a skillion roof.  Just look at the kink!

So, it really was a standard skillion roof signal box, but with a kinky eastern profile, chimney and pole growing out of the roof. Makes the textbook version I modelled seem rather bland.

But progress continues! B Box needs its shunters' cabin for company, and so I built a version based on the original plans, plus a bit of license to build the chook shed extension at the western end of the cabin. 

And these are thirsty signalmen and shunters, so there was an immediate need to build the Railway Junction Hotel, which has sated the thirst of many a traveler through Dubbo. It also had a great vantage point over the railway crossing, which I can personally testify to from the front bar.

The Railway Junction Hotel is welcoming, but it would never win a beauty pageant. So, unsurprisingly, there is no similar hotel model on the market currently.  So I rummaged through the unmade-kits box to discover these from Woodland Scenics. Yes, they don't look much like a pub either. 

Anyway, I started jamming this with that and soon enough something that looked a bit like a pub started to emerge.  The following shot shows the signal box, shunters cabin and the pub.  All need a few details, like chimneys, a door for the signal box and steps. An order from Uncle Joe to arrive this week should resolve a few of these missing elements. Ignore the colours of the models in the next few photos - once lockdown is over I am off to buy paint. But I am somewhat satisfied with how things are going.

One of the photos of Dubbo that has been emailed to me over the years really stuck in my mind.  Sorry, the photographer's name didn't.  It may have been Weston Langford.  It is this one of 3122T shunting in front of the Railway Junction Hotel.

Long way to go, but I can see something similar emerging.

The other thing missing from the western side of any Fitzroy St scene is something that fulfills the function of Furney's Stockfeeds - a corrugated iron clad industry which gives you something to shunt other than wheat and fuel wagons.  It has a sentimental attachment - my three chickens regularly eat Furney's products well into 21st century. And so it was back to the unmade-kits box. This time I found a couple of items which were built in the early 1990s as a low relief background, but never progressed (until last night).

I have no recollection of what Furneys looked like in the 1960s, but I can assure you that it has never been a double-story brick building, but it is now.  The one thing I do remember was the word 'Furneys' painted across the roof.  This will happen once I am again able to wander unchecked in the model shops of this land.  In the meantime, (a Bergs white metal with Classic chassis) 4913 has shunted its first empty into Furneys. Patrons of the Railway Junction Hotel can experience GM goodness in stereo.

And so to my final indulgence for this post. Again, there is a lot to finish and nail down but I really want to have a few 'peek holes' around the layout.  One will be looking out through the doors of the Railway Refreshment Rooms (RRR). I can recall sitting at a plain table with a milky pot of coffee, waiting for my baked beans on toast to be warmed and served. In my mind I can still see the mail train that had deposited me there earlier that morning.  

The shed can't yet serve milky coffee and baked beans, but I have built a shell of the RRR building façade.  Again, I have used the 'essence' license and gone totally rogue with the doors which were never that grand in real life but give me enough width to see into the yard.  There is a lot wrong with the following photo, including the asphalt on the platform not sitting down properly, but it gives an idea that the smell of baked beans in the morning is not too far away. 

That's enough from me this week. Keep away from the Spicy Cough comrades!

Cheers

Don

When modelling comes indoors

Its been a cold winter in these parts - down to minus most mornings and the train shed never gets above 10 in July and August (this year it started in May).  It isn't much fun watching a 30T shunt when you can't feel your fingers or toes, even under several layers of clothing.  So this is my way of confessing to (a) being soft in my old age (b) reluctant to spend time in the shed these part few months.  Don't worry, give it four months and I'll be complaining about the heat.

Anyway, while sitting inside next to the fire I have been inspired by the most excellent series of books by Bob Taafe on signal boxes of NSW.  The drawings in the books are a modeler's treasure chest and the maps are pretty darn good too (thank you Mr S).

As I sat there, inspired, I counted up the number of signal boxes I will need for the layout - 12! Including four in Dubbo itself, plus Dubbo East and Troy Junctions!  And no two are the same. That is a lifetime of scratch building at the rate I achieve things.  The load will need to be lessened by purchasing one or more kits, but it is still a decade of (under) achievement, even counting that I have 2.5 boxes already made. 

All this is a way of saying I have made a start on Dubbo B box, which sat on the southwestern corner of the mainline as it crossed Fitzroy Street.  According the Taafe bible, the first Dubbo B box was on the northern side of the line.  This was replaced by the one I want to construct in 1936.  The replacement was, as described by Bob Taafe, the 'classic NSWR country signal box' - skillion roof, weatherboard walled and known by the owners as the 'standard low elevation signal cabin'. 

As kids, we would regularly be held up here to see a 30T wheeze by, shunting the yard.  So, it came with my usual sense of disappointment to find we had no photos of the box prior to its re-sheeting in the early 1980s into a truly horrid looking box. Then we have plenty of the new iteration.

Bob Taafe points out that the primary purpose of the signal box was to shelter the officer in charge of opening and closing the Fitzroy Street railway crossing gates, as the signals were worked from Dubbo A box on the station platform.  And that is what I remember most - the bum side of a laconically posed worker, usually with a cigarette hanging our of his mouth, leaning up against the gate, also watching the 30T wheeze by.

Thankfully, I managed to find several good shots on various Facebook groups, which confirmed that Dubbo B box varied from the standard design (along with many other examples) with a door on the eastern end, rather than out onto a small platform. The following photo is a snippet of a great shot published in Derek Rogers's book, Remember When.  I have stolen this particular photo because it also shows my next modelling project - the shunter's cabin aka the chook shed.

The other reason I picked Dubbo B box is that it was a solid wall on the high (southern) side, which is the side most people will view it from on the layout.  Solid walls are my modelling forte.

Armed with all this information, I nearly built the whole box in a day.  Probably my fastest effort ever as I like to stop to sniff the glue as it dries.  Here's a bit of evidence.

The windows are undersized against the prototype, but they are a North Eastern product so they are a joy to work with.  I added another pane of windows to make up for the narrowness of the North Eastern ones.  And I impressed myself by remembering to not glue the roof on before it is painted and the window glass inserted.  

Here is a close up from the north western end - the window frames look a bit wonky as they are only sitting there. Every photo I have of this box, the west end window is open, so it is too in the model.  I am OK with the way it looks.  Chimney pot, guttering and telegraph wires to be added, along with a black snake sliding under the foundations.

And yes, it will be painted at some stage.  On 19 March 1964 a gentleman by the name of Howard Simpson took a lovely photo of 3080T in the vicinity of Dubbo B box, which another gentleman (Chris Sim) posted on Facebook.  I have snaffled the right hand 30% of that photo and reproduced it below, as it will be my guide for painting when that time comes.  It was once a very handsome box!

So, I am off to do another signal box in August, probably Troy Junction.  But I will be building that one our of inflammable materials as the prototype had a propensity to combust.

Thanks to all who contributed to this imperfect near-rendering of Dubbo B box - Messrs Taafe, S, Rogers, Simpson and Sim.  See, it takes a village to raise a signal box.

Cheers,
Don